Free Republic

Four Americans are now being held captive by foreign governments or non-state actors: two journalists in North Korea, one journalist in Iran, and one ship captain off the coast of Somalia. Has anyone heard from the president about these incidents? In regard to North Korea and Iran, Barack Obama is too dug-in to a capitulationist stance to make a peep. While free and safe journalists praise Obama for “listening” to autocrats and fanatics, their less fortunate colleagues have been listening in vain for a word from the American president. Tragic as that is, it does at least free up Obama...

WASHINGTON, March 30, 2009 – Three American contractors who survived five and a half years in a Colombian jungle likened their captivity to being on the “planet of the apes,” said one of the three contractors held by the terrorist organization known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. “We were off this planet for so long that we would marvel at something basic, as basic as a flat floor and a flat wall. It was a totally different planet that we had escaped or been rescued from,” Tom Howes told online journalists and bloggers during a...

According to the well-informed Israeli army radio, Israel has said it is willing to hand over five Lebanese prisoners for the return of Goldwasser and Regev. Israel would also be willing to release the bodies of 10 Hezbollah fighters, it added. The low numbers of prisoners being mentioned in the deal has raised eyebrows in Israel. Many take it to mean that the two soldiers are no longer alive. From the very moment of the abduction, the Israeli army was convinced that the two men were badly hurt because of the blood stains they found at the site of the...

An Iraqi group linked to al-Qaeda has said that three US troops which it claims to have captured will be safe only if the army calls off its search for the missing men. The Islamic State of Iraq, which works closely with al-Qaeda, issued the taunt - to which US spokesmen have not publicly responded - in a statement posted on a website on Monday. "Your soldiers are in our grip. If you want the safety of your soldiers then do not search for them," the statement said. US soldiers have appealed for local Iraqis to help them find the...

Iran film 'to tell sailors' tale' By Frances Harrison BBC News, Tehran The crew returned to the UK after 13 days in captivity The Iranian military says it will soon release a film documenting the arrest, interrogation and statements by UK sailors held in Iran for two weeks. It said it was a huge scandal for the UK military that some of the sailors had been allowed to sell their stories. The military will release a CD and book about the arrest of the sailors - or, as it calls them, "British aggressors". The statement came from the culture and...

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2007 – In a string of operations across Iraq over the past four days, Iraqi and coalition forces detained 43 suspected terrorists, found several weapons caches, stopped an illegal checkpoint, and freed three captives, military officials reported. -- In Karmah, Iraq, coalition forces detained 12 suspected terrorists today. Intelligence reports indicate the detainees have key logistical ties to the al Qaeda in Iraq network and to improvised explosive device production. Reports indicate that they are responsible for the recent increase in IED attacks in the Karmah area. During the raid, coalition forces found several AK-47s and...

‘Most hated man in Israel’ at centre of deal to bring prisoners back home IN his Israeli jail cell Samir Qantar, who is serving four life sentences for murder and terrorism, dreams about an exchange of prisoners that might allow him to go home to Lebanon. “I can imagine how I’ll return to my village,” he said. “First I hug my mum, then my brothers and sisters, all of them. My idea, which I’ll never give up, is to come out of here with my head held up, without giving up any of my principles.” Qantar, 44, has been in...

Two foreign journalists removed by Hezbollah in Beirut BEIRUT - Two foreign journalists of television and their assistants Lebanese who filmed Thursday in a district of the center of Beirut were removed by members of the party Hezbollah Shiite, one learned near a senior police officer. "the team was filming in the gardens of Sanayeh", a public park which accomodates a number of refugees in the center of Beirut, according to this officer. "Of the elements of Hezbollah seized them suspecting them of being spies", it affirmed, refusing to give the nationality from two abroad and the media for which...

See for example this thread first. And now more good news from Iraq Some terrorists have given back Hostages they took Take another look The jihadists are starting to crack!

'When people see a strong horse and a weak horse," Osama bin Laden said after the destruction of the World Trade Center, "by nature they will like the weak horse." No maxim has better encapsulated the merciless philosophy of al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups around the world. In the past week, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist believed to have captured the Liverpudlian engineer Kenneth Bigley and two Americans 10 days ago, has shown that this principle remains at the heart of what he and his fellow fanatics are doing. If Zarqawi's aim has been to show that the West...

Two more US soldiers and several US citizens have been announced missing by Pentagon officials, reported Army Radio Saturday morning. Witnesses say 9 people were killed when a convoy was attacked, resulting in the reported abduction of the Americans. Meanwhile, one of two Palestyinian abductees being held by Iraqi militants is – in fact – a Canadian using false credentials. Ahmed Yassin Tickati's real name is Hissan Fadel, and the Canadian government has announced it is acting towards his release. Palestinian cabinet member Saeb Arekat said Friday that the Palestinian Administration is working towards the release of the captive Palestinians,...

LONDON (Reuters) - At least four and possibly as many as eight members of a Spanish intelligence team were killed on Saturday in an attack on their convoy south of Baghdad, a reporter from Britain's Sky News television said. David Bowden said in a report from Baghdad after returning from the scene that he saw four bodies and that locals said eight were killed in total and another two people taken prisoner. Spanish officials said in Madrid an eight-strong team had been attacked and it was unclear how many were hurt. "We were actually driving from the town of Hilla,...

The International Committee of the Red Cross accused coalition forces yesterday of failing to follow the Geneva Conventions in their treatment of prisoners of war. As British and American anger over the parading of five American soldiers on Iraqi television continued unabated, the ICRC said the allies and the Iraqis should re-examine the way they handled PoWs. Referring to Article 13 in the third convention, Florian Westphal, from the ICRC, said PoWs should at all times be humanely treated, protected particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against "insults and public curiosity". He referred to photographs in the media...

Camp X-Ray captives to get new cells 26-04-2002By Jane Sutton U.S. NAVAL BASE, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Reuters) - The 300 Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners at the U.S. military's Camp X-Ray in Cuba will soon move out of the chain-link cells that prompted an outcry from human rights groups and into more solid structures, military officials say. The most obvious improvement at the new prison camp is indoor plumbing. Prison camp officials at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would not say when the captives from the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan will be moved into the new Camp...